Darla Bjork
is a painter who has exhibited in the United States and Europe. She is
also a psychiatrist who has had a private practice in New York City for
many years. Her work has evolved from abstract portraits that reflected
people she worked with in mental institutions to abstract landscapes influenced
by her childhood in rural Minnesota and now by the view of the Catskill
Mountains from her studio in Woodstock, NY. For years she painted with
oils on canvas but for the past six years has incorporated encaustic wax
and then oil stick on wood panels.
Her latest suite of paintings, Fire Series, turns from the element
of water, the theme of her last major exhibit, to fire with all its associations.
The sense of an internal landscape is still present but the radiant blue
hues are gone and replaced with what at times is a harsh deep cadmium
red.
Darla Bjork's new body of work Fire Series reflects on the
transformative nature of fire. Utilizing its symbols of death and destruction,
purification and transformation, Bjork explores the element as a malleable
substance.
Bjork's thick layering of paint and wax, as well as digging and scraping
of materials, add to the visceral qualities of these encaustic works.The
vermilion and crimson raked across the surface seethe with a tender and
unknown violence. Forming a solitary figure against the dirty white ground,
the red marks gather in shapes of windowed-rectaingles that ebb and flow
in and out of focus.
As in her previous series Water, Bjork continues her fascination
with the ephemeral qualities of weather. Influenced by the harsh conditions
of her hometown in northern Minnesota, the severity of her work is akin
to that of the elements.
RESUME
ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2011 Fire Series, SOHO20
Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2009 Water Series,SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2007 Recent Paintings, SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2004 Dawn Paintings: Internal Landscape,SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery,
NYC
2002 India: Reflections,SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2000 Self Portraits, SOHO20 Gallery, NYC
1998 Grief Spirit, SOHO20 Gallery, NYC
1996 Omettagalleria, Sippola, Finland
1993 Ceres Gallery, NYC
1989 A.I.R. Gallery, NYC
1985 Ceres Gallery, NYC
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011 Impromptu, SOHO20 Chelsea
Gallery, NYC
I Can Dream Can't I?,
ACA Gallery, NYC
NYFAI Visual Diaries,
traveling show, Auburn University, Montgomery, AL
2010 Between the lines, SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
Fracking,Exit
Art, NYC
NYFAI Visual Diaries,
traveling show, Fairleigh Dickson University, Teaneck, NJ
NYFAI Visual Diaries,
traveling show, Suffolk Community College, LI NY
2009 Encaustic Wax, An Ancient Medium Rediscovered, Watchung Arts
Center, Watchung, NJ
Bridging Generations:
Women Artists and Organizations, Rutgers University Library, Rutgers NJ
Banks of the Hudson,
Woodstock School of Art, Woodstock, NY
The River, WAAM,
Woodstock, NY
Bridge New York,
The Waterfront, NYC
TOASTartwalk, Tribeca,
NYC
2008 merry go round, SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
Ornery Abstraction,
Ceres Gallery, NYC
A Toast to Toast,
Synagogue for the Arts, NYC
stART08, SOHO20
Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2007 Small Rays of Hope, Rhonda Schaller Chelsea Gallery, NYC
Woodstock School
of Art Regional Exhibition, Woodstock, NY
Six Chix, SOHO20
Chelsea Gallery, NYC
Woodstock Biennial,
Kleinert/James Art Center, Woodstock, NY
2006 Couples - Do Opposites Attract?, BRIK Gallery, Catskill, NY
ASK Artists' Studio
Tour 2006, Kingston, NY
7+14, Kleinert/James
Art Center, Woodstock, NY
Artists' Self Portraits,
SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2005 Portrait, Kleinert/James Art Center, Woodstock, NY
The Square Show,
Ceres Gallery, NYC
Small Works, SOHO20
Chelsea Gallery, NYC
Art Benefit for
Blue Ocean Institute,solomon Projects, Atlanta, GA
Wish You were Here
IV, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC
2004 Generations 04, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC
2003 5 x 7 Show, Kleinert/James Arts Center, Woodstock, NY
2002 Artists Choose Artists, Kleinert/James Art Center, Woodstock, NY
2001 Thrown Together, SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC
2000 Imaging the Wunderboard, Center for Freudian Analysis and Research,
London Biennale 2000
Generations, A
Survey of Woman Artists at the Millennium, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC
1999 FranklinFest, TriBecCa Art Walk, NYC
1998 amazons & avatars, OIA @ New York Law School, NYC
Troubling Customs,
Ontario College of Art & Design Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Transmission, de
Zaaijer Gallery, Amsterdam
1997 Ordinary/Extraordinary: The Artists Use of Home, Wood Street Gallery,
Chicago
1996 Un-Portrait, Galleria Mesa, Mesa, AZ
1995 Girl Dreams, Woman Visions, CB’s 313 Gallery, NYC
Girlhood, Ceres
Gallery, NYC
Nancy Azara &
Darla Bjork, Wall Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NYC
Re/Defining Lesbians:
Power/Transition, WCA, Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, San Antonio,
TX
1994 Healing through Art/The Art of Healing, Times Square Gallery, NYC
Astraea Arts &
Leisure Auction, The Drawing Center, NYC
OPEN/SHUT, Exploring
Women’s Lives, The Crystal Quilt, Inc, NYC
1993 OIA Salon, The Prince Building, NYC
The Face Not Only
A Parent Could Love, Triplex Gallery, NYC
Women’s Art-Women’s
Lives-Women’s Issues, Tweed Gallery, NYC
1991 Scarlet Letters, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY
Visible For A Change,
Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA
Wiminfest Art,
Jonson Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
The NYC Anti-War
Group Exhibition, Brecht Forum, NYC
1990 Black Listed, Whitewashed, Red Handed, SOHO20 Gallery, NYC
The Human Image,
North Hennepin Community College, Minneapolis, MN
1989 The Art of Ceres, the Krasdale Exhibition, Bronx
1988 Artists choose Artists, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC
1986 In Homage to Ana Mendieta, Zeus-Trabia Gallery, NYC
1985 Small Works, 80 Washington Square East Galleries, NYC
1984 Art as Therapy: Therapy as Art, Resnick Gallery, Brooklyn
REVIEWS
2009 Full of Talent, Joe Bendik,
Chelsea Clinton News
Bjork's ruminations,
Paul Smart, Woodstock Times
Water, Water everywhere,
Joanne Mattera Art Blog
WAAM looks at The River,
Paul Smart, Woodstock Times
2002 Art Review, Woodstock Times
1996 Taiteen tekeminen psykiatriaa, Kouvolan Sanomat,
1989 Darla Bjork, Elise LaRose, Women Artist's News
Gifted, Arlene Raven,
The Village Voice
EDUCATION
1979-1984 NYFAI/Women's Center
for Learning, NYC
1977 Brooklyn Museum School, Brooklyn
1965-1969 Psychiatry Residency, Kings County Hospital/Downstate Medical
Center, Brooklyn
1961-1965 University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN
1959-1961 St Olaf College, Northfield, MN
